Employers are starting to recognise the benefits of using social media to source and engage talent.
Facebook has opened up recruiters’ doors to just under 20% of the global population. LinkedIn is providing access to more than 125 million workers throughout the world and Google’s Google+ social networking site is gaining traction at a breath-taking rate.
By enabling organisations to make contact with candidates directly, these channels can ultimately lead to reduced costs and swifter hiring times. And job boards have been quick to capitalise on this promise, developing offerings such BranchOut and BeKnown, which use information provided in an individual’s Facebook account to present relevant jobs and encourage them to forward relevant jobs to their network of contacts.
Social media sites themselves have also become more powerful. Sites such as theSocialCV, for example, pull together information from personal and professional social media profiles to offer an unparalleled (and debatably intrusive) insight into the lives of potential candidates.
A plethora of free and paid-for monitoring tools have likewise appeared on the market. Radian 6, for instance, enables employers to listen in on conversations taking place across the social media arena, generating alerts when keywords are mentioned and shifts in sentiment occur.
Being able to get under the skin of possible new hires can help HR directors to develop successful recruitment campaigns, as organisations such as Hertfordshire Constabulary would attest. But this success can come at a price, forcing organisations to think about how they are structured in order to respond adequately to fast-moving situations.
Intelligent ongoing communication
In an environment where the complex relationship between consumer and employer brand is still not fully understood, however, asking firms to invest in restructuring their departments and retraining employees, especially in difficult economic times, is a huge ask. On top of this, absolute proof of the benefits is still hard to come by.
This means that many firms either leave the task of monitoring the social media marketplace to one or two usually junior individuals or they ignore it altogether. But such an approach shows a lack of understanding of not only the sheer size of the undertaking, but also how quickly things can go wrong – as the chief executives of both Dominos and the now defunct Habitat discovered to their cost.
In the case of Dominos, a spoof video posted by two bored employees resulted in the company share price and brand index plummeting, while the communications team and chief executive struggled to respond in real (enough) time. For Habitat, the well-intentioned idea of using an intern to employ trending social media terms during the Iraq war led to swift condemnation of the firm from communities around the world.
As examples of good practice, however, some organisations such as Gatorade have fully developed ‘listening stations’, which use a bespoke combination of tools to understand what social media users are saying. Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s response teams are likewise based within its call centres, enabling frontline employees to respond immediately.
Both organisations have clearly grasped the concept that the best people to respond to social media conversations are those that do so day in, day out. They have also understood that social media has broader potential that simply providing recruiters with a new channel for sourcing quality talent.
Instead such tools enable employers and potential candidates to communicate on an on-going basis over much longer periods of time than has traditionally been the case.
Here are our top three tips for using social media as effectively as possible in a recruitment context:
1. Use groups, and specifically closed groups, to interact with potential candidates.
Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn enable you to create ‘closed’ or ‘private’ groups, which are a great way for potential candidates and recruiters to stay in touch. Being able to send information to a particular group rather than emailing each person individually also saves a lot of time.
But there must be a clear reason why candidates would want to use your group and they must be engaged in active dialogue from the outside. Failure to do either and your group will quickly become a damp squib.
2. Dialogue should be little and often.
In dialogue terms, we have seen a shift from lengthy diatribes to micro-conversations. Recruiters are already exploiting status information to alert their network to potential new opportunities. Next on the agenda, however, is using status updates to inform audiences of relevant reports, company events and even new photos.
Conversations can be public or private. Twitter users can employ shortcuts to enable the automatic posting of status updates to LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. Google+ and LinkedIn users can to specify who will see an update. But the key to success is keeping your audience continually engaged – not just with your charming personality, but with information that adds value to their working day.
3. Effective contact management is key.
Even if your organisation doesn’t have a big customer relationship management system like ACT and Siebel, there are a number of powerful, free tools available for contact management. But update notes after each interaction with potential hires. After all, the better the data you put in, the more valuable the information.
To get your social media recruitment strategy right requires more than simply learning how to use the tools, however. It requires understanding the complex relationship between employers, their employees and the people that they are keen to reach.
It also requires difficult conversations about how social media should be funded, where teams should sit and how organisations can best capitalise on it. But above all, it requires a level of commitment from senior executives that only comes with a true understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Andy Hyatt is digital director at recruitment consultancy, Bernard Hodes Group.
